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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Our Halloween

Hello!!! I hope you all had a great time yesterday.. for the night of Halloween!!

As an Italian, Halloween is not one of my traditions, even if I heard that now it's becoming very popular also over there (just to copy America, I think). I've been asked by a friend what is the meaning of this feast, if there's a deeper layer behind ghosts and witches. I had no idea what to say! I always thought it was an ancient pagan feast that "made fun" of death, trying not to be scared of dying... something like that. Instead, I have found out, after some online research, that it actually comes from Christian background, or at least it was somehow adapted also to Christianity. The word Halloween is thought to have been influenced by the Christian holy days ofAll Saints' Day {also known as All Hallows, Hallowmas or Hallowtide} on November 1 and All Souls' Day on November 2.

I'll copy and paste the explanation I found about dressing up:

The custom of wearing costumes has been linked to All Saints/All Souls by Prince Sorie Conteh, who wrote: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities".

Interesting! isn't it??

Well... after this history lesson I'll show you a picture of my happy children last night! We didn't go Trick-or-treating {after a scary experience two years ago..} but we received lots of candies from different people anyways!! :)